Proposal to ban ‘conversion therapy’ for same-sex attraction

Mary McAleese said priests teaching conversion therapy in Ireland was a “very dangerous thing to be doing”Brian Lawless/PA

“Conversion therapy” and homophobic courses for LGBT people would be banned in Ireland under legislation being proposed today.

It comes days after concerns were raised about a Catholic group operating in Ireland which claims to help “persons with same-sex attractions” to live “chaste lives”.

So-called conversion therapy aims to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation. In some cases it can involve extreme measures such as electroshock therapy. In others, particularly with religious-led therapy, LGBT people are taught to abstain from sex.

Fintan Warfield, the Sinn Féin senator, is proposing legislation today which would ban the practice in Ireland, and move to criminalise attempts to take LGBT people abroad to “summer camps” which use conversion therapy — in the US and elsewhere. The proposed legislation will…